XIII.
The next day Polycles sent by a trustworthy messenger a letter to the ship-owner in Athens who had been the demarch of Lycon’s district. The wine-dealer knew him, for the latter had visited Methone more than once in his ship. Ten days after the answer came, stating that if Lycon would pay a fine of ten minae his name would be erased from the list of citizens, thereby avoiding any legal prosecution.
At this message Lycon drew a deep breath, like a man who has reached dry land after fighting a long time for his life among the waves.
“The gods be praised!” he exclaimed. “Now, for the first time, I can use my liberty as a thing which belongs to me, and which no man has a right to take away.”
Myrtale embraced Polycles, and said with her brightest smile:
“So you, too, are a benefactor! Have you not saved the city’s deliverer from becoming a slave in a strange place?”
A few days after Lycon, attended by Conops, made an excursion to the neighboring city of Ormenium, the place where he had been a slave before he fled to Poseidon’s altar in Methone. In Ormenium he visited his former master, a physician, and remained a long time with him. On his departure the physician accompanied him part of the way to Methone and, as they took leave of each other, he asked Lycon if he was serious in the request he had made him. When Lycon answered in the affirmative, the doctor laughed and shook his head as though it was very extraordinary. “Take it then,” he said, handing him something wrapped in cloth, which Lycon carefully concealed in the folds of his robe.
After having been elected a citizen of Methone, Lycon had gone to live in the house in the Street of the Bakers. Much of the furniture had been ruined by the flood so, with the help of Myrtale’s nurse, he was obliged to provide the women’s apartment with many things ere a bride could be received and a new household established.
One day, early in the morning, the old mansion was adorned with garlands and the door, especially, was decked and surrounded with ropes of flowers decorated with tassels of blossoms. Polycles’ house, the bride’s present home, was ornamented in the same way.
Darkness had scarcely closed in, when the roll of wheels and the hum of many voices were heard outside of the door of the latter dwelling. Accompanied by a numerous train, a chariot drawn by white mules stopped before the door, ready to bear the bride home. Lycon and his chosen bridesman, Polycles, entered the house and received from the hand of an elderly female relative the closely-veiled bride to conduct her to the chariot, where each took a seat beside the muffled figure.
The nuptial torches were lighted, and the procession started. The flames cast their red glare over the magnificent holiday robes; the flutes sounded, and the hymeneal hymns echoed far through the stillness of the evening.
The inhabitants had all gathered outside the doors of their houses, and within the dusky vestibules appeared the heads of male and female slaves. All who were passing stopped and greeted the procession with the words: “Happiness and prosperity!”
“How peaceful and beautiful it is here,” whispered Lycon to his bride. “In Athens, on the contrary, on such an evening there is more noise and bustle than usual. Every bridal procession is surrounded by beggars, carrying tame crows in their hands.”
“Crows?” repeated Myrtale in surprise.
“It is really so,” replied Lycon, smiling. “Among the Athenians the crow is the bird sacred to bridals, and when a beggar carries one in his hand no one can forbid him to follow the procession into the house, to sing the ancient vulgar crow-song and then make himself at home.”
On reaching home the wedded pair, according to custom, were overwhelmed with a shower of little cakes, figs, dried grapes, and small coins—emblematical of the prosperity to be expected.
The festal hall was lighted by tripods bearing numerous lamps; on one side stood tables for the men, on the other for the women. Among the guests were the old chief magistrate who had presided at the popular assembly, the citizens who had been on the most intimate terms with Simonides, and some of the female relatives of the bride. Young slaves in new garments, with purple fillets around their hair, placed between the couches little tables bearing favorite dishes.
When the wedding cakes were eaten it was nearly midnight. The oldest female relative now led the young couple across the peristyle to the quiet sleeping room. All the guests followed, and the nuptial hymn was sung once more outside of the closed door. But when the last visitor had gone and the porter closed the heavy house-door with a noise that echoed through the peristyle, Lycon clasped Myrtale’s hand, saying:
“That noise is dearer to me than the notes of the nuptial hymn. Now we are alone; now I have you forever.”
He drew her towards him and his lips sought hers, but Myrtale, reared in the seclusion of the virgin-chamber, had never been alone with any man, and blushing deeply, averted her face.
Lycon took the clay lamp, shaped like a couch on which lay a sleeping Eros, and pointing to the little god, said:
“The love that fills my breast will never slumber until my hair is white and my back bowed with age. It would be an evil omen if I let this lamp burn on our bridal night. Neither now nor in the future shall it shine for us.”
With these words, he flung it down so that it was broken in the fall and lay shattered on the tiled floor.
In the intense darkness which had surrounded them, he drew Myrtale to his breast. His heart throbbed as it never had before, and the gloom seemed filled with little dancing flames like those of the broken lamp. With the perfume from Myrtale’s hair, he felt as if he were breathing an atmosphere of warm, ardent youth, and in the silence which Eros commands his mouth again sought the small, fresh lips.
This time Myrtale did not avert her face.